In this Tuesday, July 27, 2010 photo, lobsterman Nat Hussey hauls a trap while fishing off Matinicus Island, Maine. Hussey hauls as many as 75 traps a day from his rowboat. "It's the hardest work I've ever done," he says. (AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty)— AP

In this Tuesday, July 27, 2010 photo, lobsterman Nat Hussey hauls a trap while fishing off Matinicus Island, Maine. Hussey hauls as many as 75 traps a day from his rowboat. "It's the hardest work I've ever done," he says. (AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty)
/ AP

In this Wednesday, July 28, 2010 photo, lobsterman Nat Hussey returns an undersized lobster to the water off Matinicus Island, Maine. Hussey's 15-foot cedar-and-oak peapod is modeled after the boats used by fishermen dating back to the 1870s. (AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty)— AP

In this Wednesday, July 28, 2010 photo, lobsterman Nat Hussey returns an undersized lobster to the water off Matinicus Island, Maine. Hussey's 15-foot cedar-and-oak peapod is modeled after the boats used by fishermen dating back to the 1870s. (AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty)
/ AP

In this Wednesday, July 28, 2010 photo, lobsterman Nat Hussey hauls a trap by hand as diesel-powered lobsterboat motors by off Matinicus Island, Maine. This summer Hussey is using muscle-power to reduce his use of petroleum and lessen the impact on the environment. (AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty)— AP

In this Wednesday, July 28, 2010 photo, lobsterman Nat Hussey hauls a trap by hand as diesel-powered lobsterboat motors by off Matinicus Island, Maine. This summer Hussey is using muscle-power to reduce his use of petroleum and lessen the impact on the environment. (AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty)
/ AP

In a throwback to the past - with a nod to the environment - Hussey pulls his traps by hand from the cold ocean waters around this island 23 miles out to sea. Rather than use a diesel-powered boat to reach his 150 traps, he has a 15-foot wooden vessel that he rhythmically coaxes forward with two long oars.

Other lobstermen roar about, pulling traps with power winches, their engines growling and radios blaring rock 'n' roll and country music. Hussey works in solitude, waves lapping gently against his boat, a bell buoy clanging gently in the background.

It's been decades since anybody's seen a working lobsterman on Matinicus - and perhaps in Maine - earn a day's pay rowing to his traps and hauling them by hand. Hussey's boat looks like a toy moored in Matinicus Harbor amid the island's other vessels.

"Yes, I'm crazy," Hussey said one recent summer day. "But I feel like I'm crazy with some kind of purpose, which is to show that it's possible to go smaller and go slower and still make somewhat of a living, while helping with some of the energy and food problems we have."

Hussey, 47, is relative newcomer to the lobster industry. He worked as a sternman aboard boats the past four years after coming to Matinicus in 2006 with his wife and three children. He previously worked on the mainland as a trial lawyer and later in an office job with the Maine Department of Corrections, but prefers lobstering to either.

This summer, he put out on his own boat, "Sweet Pea," for his "zero-carbon lobster harvesting project." He hopes to prove he and perhaps others can earn a livelihood the old-fashioned way.

Hussey wants to cut his fuel use and his efforts to lessen his environmental impact are evident: He uses recycled gear - bait bags, rope, bungee cords - that he's found washed up on shore.

"This isn't a novelty act or a protest," he said. "It's supposed to be a small freestanding business."

Before the gasoline engine, lobster boats were powered by oar and wind.

By the early 1900s, power boats slowly replaced sailboats and rowboats, allowing fishermen to travel farther offshore and extend their season. With engines supplying power to trap haulers, lobstermen no longer had to pull their traps by hand.

Nowadays, virtually all of Maine's nearly 6,000 licensed lobstermen work aboard power boats with the latest sonar, radar and GPS and engines that can top out at 1000 horsepower or more.

Hussey's cedar-and-oak "peapod," newly built at a boatbuilding shop on the mainland, has none of that.

Wearing orange oilskins, he stands in the middle of his boat, one foot slightly in front of the other and pushes his 8 1/2-foot-long oars in a circular motion forward and back, forward and back - over and over and over - to row out to his traps. When it's blowing, he pulls up a small sail on a 12-foot mast in the bow to capture the wind.